(Ursula Rucker)   Muffled sound of fist on flesh   Blows to chest   No breath   Air gasps   You ain't nothing but white trash, bitch!   With each hit, each kick, each...broken rib   Crack, Crack!   Bones are crying   Mommy's crying and bleeding   And pleading   And then...   Daddy wants to fuck   Dick hard, swelled with power rush   And as if all that wasn't enough   Mommy's seven months heavy with birth   As...Daddy grunts and cursed drunk nothings in her bloodied ear      (singing softly)   First...lullaby   First...Son...will...ever...hear   And never forget      Mommy almost bled to death when she have him...finally   She'd already lost...three    Uterus-bruised, shredded, and weak   From being daily beat   And Friday nights were the worse and...   Daddy never came with flowers   Instead he spent hours at some corner spot   With some bar pop named Cookie   Putting his thing down   Soiling Mommy's sheets with...   Sweet...talk shit,    Cookie's cheap lipstick,    Hair grease, sperm, and jezebel juice      To hell with the good news that...   He was a father for the first time   His thirst for wine and women   Clouded his vision...   No warm welcome for mother and son   Just...   The rank smell of ass-crack, funk, and cum   But Mommy's prayerful strength-her best defense   She...burned the dirty linens   Made a fresh bed   Laid sleeping First Son down   And never made a sound   As she purged her scourge   With birth-blood and quiet tears   Watching as her fears and love and sacrifice   Lie there in his soft skin and new life   Breathing, dreaming, fresh from God's eye   Mommy's little survivor   Like...her      Mommy called crazy and scorned   'Cuz she two more born   One boy soon after   The girl much later and...   Although they were both sung the same lullabies of hate    Her...First Son, the first one   Whose...womb-world was profaned   Came of age playing street games   With Stewie, Rezzie, and Little Brother      'Till his heart start to wither   In pain and shame   Blamed Mom for the wrong she let Daddy do to her   And him...   Let...sins of the Father cause his Innocence to wander   Found out amongst thieves    Chose to squander his dreams   Stopped believing in himself   Become prodigal with his life   Make impossible shit right with...   Gang-ties, crime, lies   Erase wise, woeful words of Mother   Replaced them with absurdities of others   Who had also lost their way      Played a different kind of street game now   First Son plunged deep   Speak street-family vows   Espouse no causes but his own   See, he couldn't protect Mommy's neck from Daddy's grasp   Or...protect Mommy's ass from Daddy's wrath   Couldn't shield her ears from...   Daddy's foul-mouthed, liquor-breath jeers   His only defense-served be confidence   Brown bottles housed his swift descent   Phones called cops on block frequent for his shenanigans   Now...Daddy and him twins in addiction   Driven to false-hearted heavens and friends   By liquefied demons   Had become what he despised from Conception 'til End   Destined for a demise   Survived nine lives of staying high   Conning, jewelry-pawning, arrests, theft   Womanizing...only for money, never for sex   Bullet in chest, baseball bat to the head   Left for dead   So, eyes wide and glassy   Speech...slowed and slurred   Lips twitched with caked-up codeine candy   And mouth corners one December 24th   Mr. Hide and False Friend   Took final ride to suburban supplier   Shots were fired by the gray man   With shaky hand   But not shaky enough to miss...   Hit...Lost Boy in back   So-called Friend runs for door   Leaves First Son blood-born   Lying alone in blood on cold floor      Death was the cause of...   Returning to Innocence Lost...      Baby 'Sis awake for dawn on Christmas morn   To Mommy's sobs and shakes   Daddy's silhouettes of regret   All past, omitted, and absolved by lost   As they clung to each other   Knowing...